I wondered if anybody could please advise.
Our 16 month old son has always been a poor sleeper but we're really starting to struggle and this is having an impact on our relationship as a couple.
Our son was breastfed until 8 months and we initially struggled to get him to take a bottle because of his reliance on the breast. The sleep deprivation got so bad that we knew we had to persist in order to share the work between us. After much hard work and persistence it paid off and between 8-14 months we shared the night feeding which would be between 2-3 times a night.
When we got to 14 months things we recognised that there was no need for so many feeds in the night and we sucessfully weaned down to no overnight formula over a few weeks.
This has been great for approximately three weeks with baby sleeping through most nights and only waking occasionaly. We have done controlled crying in the past so left him cry it out for the 10 minute periods during this time that he would wake.
For the past week however our son keeps waking at a range of times through the night from 1am and 5am. In this time he is very unsettled and our attempts at letting him cry it out have gone from successful to full on failure.
There's probably a lot more info that this post could contain but between trying to keep it succinct and sheer tiredness at only having 2 hours sleep again!! Well. you know.
I don't feel like we have a strategy at the moment and the sleep deprivation is taking a large toll on our relationship. I feel lost and think we just to know what to do next.
Does anybody have any suggestions on a strategy for moving forward? I know that if we have a plan that we can improve matters but its the lack of knowing what to try that is debilitating.
TIA